Callan 的个人资料Shadows and Crystals照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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1月27日 ResignationLast night I had a haircut, and then resigned from Waitrose. Next week is my final week. It served me well throughout college, but to be frank I am glad to put it behind me now; better things await on the horizon and in the present. And maintaining my current schedule with waitrose in it isn't really feasible anyway so...
How excessively liberating this is =)
Also today I had to run spirometry, the retinal camera and pupilometry single-handedly while filling in diary slots in my spare time, which was excellent - meant I was kept busy yet relaxed enough to talk to the trekkers, and meant that I didn't eat lunch till about 4:15. Still, great fun and satisfying compared to days when you just slob about for most of the day and then work in 20-minute bursts.
It occured to me this morning on the tube (curses to the constant track repairs on the Northern Line) that - oh I met someone on the tube this morning who I actually knew. The chances of that happening are so astronomically small that I was too surprised to say anything, and they didn't recognise me at first because of my haircut. Still, it made the journey a bit more entertaining =)
As I was saying, it occured to me this morning on the tube, curses on the constant track repairs on the Northern Line, that three months is actually rather a long time to live in a tent in the snow up a mountain. Obvious, it may seem, but it just hadn't hit me how long 90-odd days really is, without all the trappings of my current, relatively luxurious, lifestyle.
And you know what? It didn't deter me in the least. In fact, it detered me so little that I finished the damn crossword on the train back, using my own pen for once, and emerged triumphant. Roll on! 1月20日 Dear applicant..."...I am delighted to inform you that after consideration of your application for entry to the Bachelor of Medicine five year degree programme (A100) the Selectors for the School of Medicine would like to offer you a place. Both the conditions of the offer and confirmaion of your fees status will be communicated to you via UCAS and your decision must be returned through them. However, if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us."
Forgive the obscenity but:
FUCK YES!!!
I'm in. 1月19日 Update IIThere is some UCAS news, it is at the bottom of this entry.
So I spent the last week in London, and did work, and it was excellent. Tested more people, did more stuff, commuted home today with a 60 litre blue plastic barrel, which was pretty awkward to carry for the mile walk to the tube station, and garnered some pretty awkward looks on the tube (pssst - that guy, yeah, the young suspicious looking one with the big blue plastic barrel...wha'd'ya reckon?). My neck hurts from the way I carried it, but I did manage to get it back and it did provide a handy seat any time I wanted to stop, and on station platforms, and a handy table on the train, and all sorts. I should carry barrels more often, evidently. You might ask why I was strapping this barrel into the passenger seat of my car, or sitting it next to me, or why I had it at all - basically I need to fill it with some stuff, fill the rest of the gaps with chocolate and then send it out to Everest base camp ahead of me.
I also was talking to a girl on the train on the way back, who once again (!) kindly lent me a pen for the crossword, although this time I managed to give it back. I must get my act together and create some sort of pen stash about my person, such that I will not be without a pen on a long boring train journey any more. Its kind of nice to talk to people on the train, who you don't know and most probably will never see again - sort of liberating somehow. I suppose its that you can say what you like, and because they have no links to anyone you know its not going to be old news to them.
In other news, I got a conditional offer from Southampton. What conditions, you may ask. Well I don't know, so I can't tell you, I might say. What I might say instead is something like: " Conditional? Conditional?! Conditional on what?! I've done my exams, I've got my grades, I'm doing some medical expedition jazz, I've got work experience and stuff - what conditions can there be?"
So I guess I wait for the letter. We'll see.
And, just out of curiosity, did anyone scroll down and read the UCAS news first? 1月11日 Thanks for the PenJust a quick note to thank whoever it was who lent me a pen on the six o'clock train from Waterloo this evening, even though you subsequently didn't retrieve it. It was very much appreciated. Even if it's shockingly unlikely that you'll read this, at least it's here just in case. And it was the samba...
As for the crossword that I was lent said pen for, the first four clues were about bloody dances. Aggravating. 1月10日 Sick to deathI am livid. I am raving and ranting. I am so deeply hurt and wounded, annoyed and frustrated, wound up to the very point of catastrophic breakdown. I am morally disgusted, and almost suicidal with hate and anguish. My rage and agony know no bounds. I have no more words for the horror I feel EVERY DAY when I have to answer MORE DAMN CLUES about dancing in the Guardian quick crossword. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DANCING AND I AM NOT GOING TO LEARN SO DROP THE DAMN TOPIC AND GET ORIGINAL!!!
In other areas of my life, things are swimmingly merry. 1月8日 My PlansFor the next few months at least. As many of you know, I am currently at work with Xtreme Everest (now Caudwell Xtreme Everest) doing testing on the 208 volunteers. Excellent news is that I'm no longer a volunteer as it were, although we are all referred to as 6-month volunteers, but I am getting paid 'a stipend' which as it happens is more than full time at Waitrose. Sometimes it is good to love the high costs in London.
There are a large variety of tests being done, ranging from filling in diaries through basic cranial measurements up to full scale CPX VO2 max testing and oxygen levels in the muscles and brain. We've got kit for retinal photography, pupilometry, an estoric device that we nicknamed 'the Hat' and all sorts of other things: combined with new safety measures such as ECG readouts there are some tests that result in a volunteer looking like some sort of poorly-decorated, cycling christmas tree.
That testing goes on well into February, and when it finishes it's our turn. Subsequent couple of weeks is just all of the Xtreme Team (as we are so humbly known) testing all the other members of the Xtreme Team. That continues to the 5th of March and as each bit of kit is finished with it's packed into our big Trifibre cases or blue plastic barrels and stacked up. Somewhere in this time, myself and Dan are going to organise the EBC library, which will be a barrel to which people will contribute books for bored people to read. Also in EBC entertainment will be a bridge club (depending on Mac) dancing lessons (depending on Helen) and I might bring some poi out to teach anyone who is interested. There is also a possiblity that I will be helping out in a fairly major way with the gastrointestinal experiments, which if I am INCREDIBLY lucky will result in my name being shown on the paper. This would be the best thing that ever happened to me in any sort of academic context - even though it's unlikely. Come the 5th of March, everything leaves the country with some of the Xtreme Team who are going out early to start the set up. After this date, there is nothing save individual packing.
On March the 16th we leave the country.
I will try and keep this updated every now and then, but these interludes will be rare. Once in Kahtmandhu, we will trek up through the four labs, stopping to acclimatise every day or two. The labs are at Kahtmandhu, Namche Bazaar, Pheriche and Base camp. We will all be testing each other on the way up. Once we are at EBC, the volunteers will start arriving in treks, and we'll test them too. The summit team will make a summit attempt, with some extra tests being done at the South Col and Western Cwm. All the Xtreme Team invasive studies will be done here as well, such as muscle biopsies and stomach sats. After 3 months of living there, we come back, although there might be some extra weeks on the end to pack up and label everything that needs returning to the UK and won't be sold on immediately.
After that...who knows?
6 down...Six down and only one to go! after that NO MORE INJECTIONS for a year apart from people taking blood from me etc on Everest, and maybe some other injections, and whatever.
But for now all is done, and this is good. I am glad I do not have a morbid fear of needles, for it would've made the process somewhat less useful.
As for the room, it is bleak but definately fine for staying in. I'll be zipping back and forth so there shall be no firm commitments to staying there when I could be home after short testing days, but I'll be able to come and go as I please such that when the CPX bikes break and we don't finish testing till 6:30 I don't get home at 9:00.
The guy who owns the flat, Andy, is seriously laid back. Almost horizontal. But he's pretty cool.
I tried to sleep till late (8:00am) today, but couldn't after I woke up at 6:00. My only day off in 12 days is ruined... 1月7日 How strangely entertaining...http:// yourfirstname . yoursurname . youaremighty.com
Change the names to yours, pop it into the address bar WITHOUT spaces for the less computer literate and watch! I found this very entertaining, but I have a strange sense of humour.
Viewing room in London tomorrow... 1月5日 Pissed OffSome monumentally moronic tithead has knocked my wing mirror off in the car park while I was at work. If they'd knocked it off and thought "Oops, sorry - I'll leave this note so that I can pay for the damage and be a gentleman/woman" then fine - I'd forgive them their mistake without a second thought (although I would make them pay for the mirror). As is, I am furious. Some people have a cowardly lack of responsibility for their own actions.
Bastards. 1月3日 I Suppose......that a 13 hour day is a significant improvement on the 15hr jobbie of before, although it was still a bit hard on 5 hours sleep
 . Today was my first day back at the Archway lab, and tomorrow is the first day of testing. Including, apparently, the press and a visit from a multimillionaire sponsor, who's identity I can only reveal tomorrow as that's when it becomes official, and if this blog was more frequented, and XtremeEverest more thunderous, would steal said thunder from underneath the nose of the aforementioned press.Also, need haircut. And to sort out flat. etc.
and I am RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY, and the meal is ready, so this will do...
1月1日 Happy New YearI'm sure this is one of thousands of blog entries the world over wishing people the same thing, but where is the harm? I always liked new years - it's always seems to have more in the way of goodwill than Christmas somehow. People all wait for midnight, count down from 10 (or 23, in last nights case), cheer wholeheartedly and dance in a circle with their arms crossed singing something only one in fifteen people know the words to.
Christmas has all the family connotations, and while my extended famly is relatively stable at the moment, it's still a drag to have to invite them all over, or to be invited to theirs, because that is the expected Christmas behaviour. I can understand people getting wound up in the run-up to Christmas, but not so in the run-up to new year.
On that note: new years resolutions.
Happy new year everyone. May it heap bucketloads of fortune upon you all, apart from my enemies, upon which may it rain copiously for many hours up until the 17th of Janurary, when it reverts to the first clauses fortune to give them new-leaf-turning capacity. All the best. |
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